PRODUCTS FROM THE SEA 353 



Verde Islands. A very similar red coral is found off the 

 coast of Japan. 



Coral has been prized by mankind from the very earliest 

 times, not only as an ornament but as a charm against 

 pests, an antidote to poisons and enchantments and as a 

 kind of universal panacea The story is told in Greek 

 Mythology of how after Perseus had slain the Medusa and 

 had thrown her head on the sea shore, the sea-nymphs 

 threw pieces of sea- 

 weed at the head and 

 watched them turn 

 into stone. When 

 these stony weeds 

 were washed back into 

 the sea they produced 

 seeds which developed 

 into coral for, as the 

 Greeks had observed, 

 red coral is soft in 

 water but turns to 

 hard stone when ex- 

 posed to the air. 



There appears to 

 have been an exten- 

 sive trade in coral 

 with the Eastern 

 peoples who valued it 

 as a jewel more highly than the emeralds, rubies, and pearls 

 they were willing to give in exchange for it, and this trade 

 penetrated as far as India and China. The early Celtic 

 population of Britain and Ireland also prized coral very 

 highly, probably obtaining it from the Mediterranean by 

 way of Gaul. An interesting evidence of this early trade, 

 which apparently preceded the Roman Conquest, was 



Fig. 65. — Diagram to show the structure of a 



branch of red coral as seen in cross section. 



Ax, axis of red coral ; A, feeding polyp ; 



S, breathing p)olyp (x 4). 



